California Custom Knives: November 2014

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Tribal Utility Knife with two-tone "tribal wrap"

Fast Becoming one of my most popular models,
is this exceptionally-fine example of the "Tribal Utility Knife"

This one has a beautiful blade that is a stock-reduction creation with Hamon out of 1095 carbon steel, and features:
African Blackwood Handle with Purpleheart inlay and rosin impregnated
(so no moisture or food-stuffs can be absorbed)
1mm woven natural and purple line that is rosin-impregnated and registered over a blind pin.

This is a robust and tough knife for a little knife....that is really not all that little at:
11.5" OAL with a 5.5" blade.

With room for knuckles over the cutting board on this one,
This wonderful might become your favorite knife in the kitchen.
Super-handy for daily meal-prep and very comfortable too.

I hope you enjoy seeing these images:)

-DON:)

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Two Beautiful Paring Knives

Here are two wonderful heirloom-quality Paring knives!

Each of these knives have very fine blades, just perfect for the task at hand in the kitchen, be it detail decorative cuts, or general utility where a fine point and a slightly larger than a traditional paring knife size tool is needed.

The Top knife is 9.5" Overall Length and sports a 4 & 3/16" Blade

The Bottom Knife is 9.5" Overall Length and sports a 4 & 1/8" blade

Both knives feature blades with differential heat treatment using clay, etched and polished surface revealing a nice hamon, and are created out of 1095 high carbon tool steel. Each blades is hafted to a fine African Blackwood Handle with antique micarta inlay and mosaic pin.

I hope you enjoy seeing these two new creations. Each is currently available as of this post.
See on my website for pricing and shipping information:
http://www.californiacustomknives.com/available_knives.html

Perfection and Beauty

What is a Hand Made Knife?

I specialize in making Heirloom Quality Knives.
They are made by hand.
This means that, while I do now own a few power tools compared to the first 7-years when I had virtually little to speak of, other than a hand drill and then a drill press; I now own a grinder and a power hammer; and yet, the knives are still created with hand-held practices, using fairly simple tools for the most part.
All of my knives are designed and created by me. I am creating some stock reduction knives, but other than that....
Each blade is forged hot on an anvil to 90% of the shape that it will be when finished. This takes Skill and lots of attention to accomplish. Adding in a TW-90 grinder helped with post stock reduction heat treatment, a process that has allowed me to refine the edge geometry on my chef knives to a place where I am very pleased with the results.
Then each knife is tested for edge-flex and toughness. Some of the testing phase can be seen in the banner image above, where after the edge-flex test I chop on very hard wood.
If the knives still shave hair after this testing then they are good to go!
Both of the two chef knives in that banner image passed with flying colors and will be cleaned-up and have handles placed on them. And eventually go into the kitchens or campsites of the new owners.
Knives made my hand are beautiful!